


i'm not letting go, i'm giving in

by astarisms



Category: The Daevabad Trilogy - S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, Post-Canon, Spoilers for Book 3: The Empire of Gold, because i said she is, because she doesn't let herself, because she's not ready, god bless, she's ready now, there's a lot nahri does not think about at the end of eog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26248315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astarisms/pseuds/astarisms
Summary: how long could you ignore your own heart before it healed all wrong, like a broken bone that set incorrectly and the pain became chronic instead of temporary?
Relationships: Darayavahoush e-Afshin/Nahri e-Nahid
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	i'm not letting go, i'm giving in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlethiefs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlethiefs/gifts), [SparrowPixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparrowPixie/gifts).



> This fic was inspired by comments @littlethiefs and @sparrowpixie made, so this one is for y'all. I hope you enjoy!

Nahri thinks of that day often in the following years—the one in the clearing at the edge of Daevabad’s boundary, where he had told her he was leaving and she had embarrassingly lost the battle with her tears at the prospect of never seeing him again, despite trying to kill him only a few days prior—though she tries not to, and pretends she doesn’t.

It’s not that she’s ashamed of the loss of control on her emotions (she  _ isn’t _ ) or that she doesn’t think their goodbye had been the closure she needed (it  _ wasn’t _ ) or that she’s still trying to untangle how she feels about him (it is). 

But she had been honest with herself then, when she had shut down any thought of  _ what if _ ’s or  _ could have been’ _ s with the knowledge that they would break her. She had not come so very far, she had not held herself together with wax and paste and paper stitches to be broken by the thought of what a future for her and Dara could have held, if only they could take back that one night.

Just one night.

_ If I could go back… it breaks my heart to think of the different path we might have taken. _

There is the familiar ache in her chest again, the painful rhythm of her heart a regular companion to her memories of him—the way his eyes softened in amusement and longing, the brooding scowl that had been his default, his hands that always lingered a little too long… him devastating their city, leaving endless carnage in his wake. The traumatized agony that had twisted his beautiful face on his knees before her. The tenderness with which he’d kissed away her tears. The urge to bury the pain, to lock away that old hurt and deal with it another day, is nearly overwhelming.

_ When will you stop running, Nahri? He is already gone.  _

No, she would not hide from it this time. There were only so many years she could convince herself were for healing, and not for hiding behind the excuse like a coward whose messy love life had more knots and entanglements than Daevabad’s politics. She had known, of course she had known, that there would come a point where she would have to confront her own convoluted feelings for him. How long could you ignore your own heart before it healed all wrong, like a broken bone that set incorrectly and the pain became chronic instead of temporary?

But Creator help her, dissecting how she feels about Dara is  _ hard. _ Every reasonable part of her tells her that a man who had hurt her so many times should not still have such a hold on her, but there has never been anything logical about what they share. It makes little sense that everytime she thought they had reached the point of no return, everytime she had thought  _ there is no coming back from this _ , she had been proven wrong.

She remembers all too well the aftermath of that night on the boat, the numbness and the dried blood crusting on her wrists and the desperation to bring him back. She remembers all too well the way echoes of that horrible night had chilled her when he had said his goodbyes and she realized that she was losing him again, that there was so much they still hadn’t said and for all the time they had there was never enough for  _ them _ . 

How did you ask the man you promised a choice to stay? How did you tell the man you swore to kill that you still felt  _ something _ ?

You didn’t, and so she hadn’t.

Even now, sometimes, she feels the words catch inside of her. After so many years under Ghassan’s thumb, Nahri was used to holding her tongue, but she had never had to with Dara and so still she finds herself wanting to say everything she hadn’t, everything she couldn’t— everything it hadn’t been the right time for, everything she had been too scared to, everything she hadn’t been ready for.

_ When will you be ready, Nahri? He isn’t coming back. _

The thought lands like a blow, and she wonders not for the first time how much of her life she will spend yearning for all the missed opportunities, but she has to come to terms with her feelings sometime and she guesses this is her reckoning because she’s already knee-deep in it and it keeps her rooted to the spot, dragging her further and further down.

How could she be this conflicted over a man who had killed so many? Who had hurt so many more? It should be  _ easy _ , to think of all that he had done and draw the line in the sand, to say enough is enough and wipe her hands of him. But then she thinks of those weeks spent by his side, of the shadows he had carried with him that she had brushed away in her own naive passion. She thinks of the torment burning in those green eyes, of the bitter resentment that had flattened his voice during their confrontation in the palace. She thinks of him on his knees, begging her to surrender so he did not have to hurt her.

She thinks of Manizheh’s smile, the affection in her aunt’s voice making her skin crawl as she recalls what she’d said:  _ He’s already been through so much; his heart can’t take what this last war requires. _

In the heat of the moment, she had not had the time to process the sentence, but she remembers those words with startling clarity in the weeks, months, years that follow. She wonders at what point he had decided they had gone too far. She wonders if he’d had his doubts before, and if his loyalty had blinded him to what was right. She wonders at the nature of such loyalty, because based on what few details she knew, her family had burned him before, so what had he been through that still bound him to them more than a millennia later?

She wonders what wondering is going to do her, because he’s  _ gone _ and she can’t  _ ask him _ and despite the way she believes that, once, she might’ve known him better than anyone, she feels like she hardly knows him at all. 

That day in the Temple is one she resents almost more than the night on the lake. What might have been different if they had gotten to talk, if he had gotten the chance to explain and answer her questions as he had promised? Would his explanations have been enough, paired with the perpetually haunted look in his eyes? Even now she feels the horror of it settle over her, and the knowledge that he had stood aside and let it happen again, that he had known Manizheh’s plan and followed her still, is almost too difficult to stomach.

How had he justified that one to himself? Why?

The questions burn inside of her, all the more because she knows she will never know. She let him walk away, because she promised him a choice and he needed to do this—for the djinn trapped like he’d been. For himself. 

_ When will you let go, Nahri? He can never return. _

She feels the breath leave her, all at once, because that’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? How does one move on without closure? She had thought that was it, on the lake, and then she had watched him die, and the grief had been so overwhelming that to this day she does not remember what happened after, though she’s heard the stories whispered amongst the servants. She had thought that was it, when he’d brought death into their city and tried to kill Ali, almost succeeded in killing Muntadhir, when he’d decimated blocks and turned her hospital into the sight of a massacre, and then she had watched him break in ways she did not know a man could.

For as long as she lives, she will never be able to forget the way he’d crumbled at her feet, the way tears and golden blood had streaked his face as he had begged her for forgiveness, for surrender, weeping into her hands. She will never be able to forget the way he’d looked when he’d known he was dying, and that she had sworn to finish the job, the despair and hopelessness in his unfocused gaze making her cold all over. 

She will never be able to forget the way he had held her, murmuring about earning happy endings. 

_ I don’t think that was the man he wanted to be,  _ she recalls saying to Jamshid once, all those years ago. She alone was the only one who knew it firsthand, who continued to stubbornly believe in it even as he continued to chip away at pieces of her. And despite everything, despite all they had been through, she still knows it to be true. That day in the clearing, the one she thinks about so often, had proved as much to her.

And so how, knowing all she knows about him and knowing all she doesn’t, does she let go? How does she stop loving the man who made her his mother’s soup, who slept by her side under the stars, who saw her into a city that was not ready for him because he could not see her hurt, who listened when she was upset and held her when she cried and joked to see her smile one last time? How does she stop loving the man who had been the only one she could ever open up to completely, the only one she had ever been able to spill her deepest, darkest desires to?

She pauses at the end of that train of thought, stricken. And then she laughs, wetly and without humor, and buries her face in her hands, because of course it’s that simple. Of course she still loves him, has never stopped loving him, and she had been a fool to try to convince herself otherwise. How could he have broken her heart so many times if she had ever taken it back? How could he have cut her so deeply, over and over, if she had ever stopped providing him the means to?

And even though it’s been well over a decade since she’d first summoned him to her in a Cairene cemetery, this hurt still aches like it’s fresh. All the endless alternatives to their story, the ones she had not trusted herself with that day, come rushing to her all at once, each more painful than the last. 

_ Oh, Dara… would that we could have had more time. _

Would that he could have explained, that she could have listened, that he could have stayed until she had the strength to tell him what she had been denying to herself for so long. 

Would that they could have spent a lifetime together, instead of being forced apart like the kind of tragic, star-crossed lovers they wrote plays about. But Nahri is not a tragic character in a play, and she knows the life she has built here is worth more than any gold or priceless gems, even if it is difficult sometimes. She has spent years recovering from her own traumas, and she knows this one will not destroy her as it once might have, because she is made of stronger stuff than wax and paste and paper stitches.

She knows that she can grieve him and all they could have been, that she can love him still, and it will not break her.


End file.
